Medieval Manuscripts from the Regional Museum in Mikulov

This year’s (2023) digitized books from the Slavonic Library come from the 17th to 19th centuries from regions in present-day Dalmatia (Croatia) and Russia. The oldest book is a printed poetic transcription of the King David’s Psalter from 1678 with 3 prefaces by Symeon of Polotsk, a scholar and clergyman (shelf mark T 8086). From the end of the 18th century comes a manuscript collection of poems and translations of old Croatian authors from the Milan Rešetar collection (shelf mark T 4121). The 19th century is represented with (1) a manuscript description of a monastery in the former town of Voskresensk (current Istra) in the Moscow Region (shelf mark T 4328); and (2) a copy of the life of Peter I by Petr Krekshin from the Alexander Grigorev collection of North Russian manuscripts (shelf mark A 14).

In 2023, the Olomouc Research Library digitised a manuscript containing a part of a German translation of the statutes of the Tertiary Sisters of St Francis in Brno (shelf mark M II 166). The manuscript was written in 1519 and was dedicated to Mother Marta, who was already a member of the Brno convent from 1500 and thus was probably, after the Mother Superior, one of the nuns who had the right to decide on the internal issues of the convent.

In 2023, the Military Historical Institute in Prague digitised another 22 manuscripts, dating from the first half of the 19th century and, with a few exceptions, written in German. In terms of content, these comprise military theory manuals, overviews Austrian army units, including the histories of some of them, texts on war events and the figures of military leaders, as well as geographical works, musical texts (shelf marks IIR D 796, IIR F 1622) and documents of personal nature, such as Ludwig von Benedek’s 1843 testimonial from 1843 (shelf mark IIR F 1621).

The Czech Pharmaceutical Museum in Kuks (a centre of Charles University in Prague – the Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Králové) digitised two manuscripts in 2023. The older of them is a copy of the 17th-century work Miracula chimici seu chrisosophiae by Johann Baptist Großschedel von Aicha (shelf mark HK-SR-5). The second manuscript is the register of the General Pharmaceutical Council in Prague (shelf mark sign. HGL, inv. č. 5, kn. 2), which contains records mostly from the years 1823–1826, complemented until the end of the 19th century; these primarily include a list of pharmacies and their owners or operators, as well as a list of the pharmacists who graduated from Charles-Ferdinand University.

In 2023, the Museum of the Jindřichův Hradec Region provided access to ten manuscripts, chiefly from the last third of the 18th century and the first third of the 19th century. Most of them are Czech and German prayer books, with the exceptions being the Passion from 1713–1714 (shelf mark Rk 148), probably a copy of two printed books by Václav Karel Holan Rovenský, and a set of Marian and other hymns from 1827 (shelf mark Rk 29).

In 2023, the Regional Museum in Teplice digitised a codex containing notes from the lectures of Jeroným Besnecker (1678–1749), a later abbot of the Cistercian monastery in Osek, which he delivered on Aristotle’s treatises on logic, the works De anima and Metaphysics at the Archbishop’s Seminary in Prague in Prague in 1709–1710 (shelf mark Or II 24).

Two modern manuscripts from the collections of the Museum and Gallery in Prostějov were digitised in 2023. The older one dates back to the end of the 17th century and contains copies of official documents from the years 1623–1684 (shelf mark 1644). Not long after its creation, it was certainly deposited in the library of Count Ignác Karel of Šternberk, for whom it had probably been intended from the beginning. The second digitised codex is a prayer book from the late 18th or early 19th century (shelf mark 393/154).

Four volumes from the collections of the Regional Museum and Gallery in Most were digitised in 2023. The oldest of them (shelf mark 3/Ruk) is a set of sermons from the end of the 15th century. According to the focus of some of the texts, it is likely to have been written by Franciscans in Bohemia. The manuscript 25/Ruk was compiled in 1731 by Antonín Hirschmann, chaplain at the convent of the Order of St Mary Magdalene in Zahražany, for local purposes and contains texts for some ceremonies. From the last third of the 18th century, there is a German-language set of regulations for Saxon military exercises from 1766 and reports on exercises from 1752–1769 (shelf mark 120/Ruk). The latest book is a sample book containing drawings of toys made by Franz Köhler & Sohn from around 1870 (shelf mark 581/RK).

In 2023, the Regional Museum in Louny provided access to a homogeneous collection of four prayer books from the years 1800–1837. The oldest of them (shelf mark S 6460) is written German, the others in Czech. Two of them (shelf marks S 6229 and S 6458) were written by Václav Bulánek, a teacher in Kralovice, who also copied a similar manuscript, which is now deposited in the Prácheň Museum in Písek under the shelf mark L 157 950. All of these codices are decorated with simple hand-coloured pen-and-ink drawings.

In 2023, three volumes were digitised from the collections of the Nostic Library, administered by the National Museum Library. The oldest of them is an illuminated Bible of Bolognese origin from the end of the 13th century (shelf mark Ms f 15). The binder’s volume from the turn of the 15th century placed under the shelf mark Ms c 39 contains the provincial statutes of the archdiocese of Gniezno from 1420, the incomplete Legend of the Three Kings by John of Hildesheim, and the first review of the Chronicle of Bohemia by Přibík Pulkava of Radenín. The last digitised codex is a martial arts manual (Fechtbuch) from 1618 (shelf mark Ms b 3).